Bosch Sensortec revealed its barometer pressure sensor technology has been validated for use with the AI-powered Snapdragon Wear Elite chip announced earlier this week by Qualcomm at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Bosch said its BMP585 barometric pressure sensor was validated for the Wear Elite chip and is also a part of the platform’s reference design. This collaboration provides “exceptionally accurate pressure data, enabling precise altitude tracking and a new layer of contextual awareness for next generation wearables,” Bosch said in press materials.
Snapdragon Wear Elite chip is Qualcomm’s latest move to enlarge its earlier work in wearables, bringing together literally hundreds of components for achieving contextual awareness and power savings in devices to be designed and made by Google, Motorola and Samsung in coming months.
While the heavy focus of Qualcomm’s announcement was on adding edge AI capabilities to next-gen wearables with power efficiency, it’s obvious that none of that work could be done without reliable sensors that first perceive their surroundings, including air pressure. ST Microelectronics earlier announced its motion sensing and secure wireless tech are part of the Wear Elite chip. ST’s LSM6DSV32X six-axis IMU distributes AI compute between that sensor and the Wear Elite main application processor to save on battery life.
It’s somewhat rare to hear component manufacturers like ST and Bosch announce their tech is used in a bigger SoC like Wear Elite, but many component makers don’t always obtain permission from major operations like Qualcomm to reveal the nature of the collaboration. Indeed, Qualcomm revealed it has an array of 50 sensors in its new platform, without naming all the vendors. The sensing hub is at the center of the chip’s architecture, alongside 13 other major components including memory and a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, CPU and more.
The big thing about pressure accuracy is not only for enhanced elevation insights, but also to provide emergency responders with z-axis location in the event of an accident. Bosch noted that it has a comprehensive portfolio of MEMS sensors that can be used in activity recognition and indoor navigation. Z-axis will give first responders insights on what floor a user is located in a multi-story building. Having altitude data can allow the wearable to understand if a person is walking on a flat surface or climbing stairs. Conceptually, a smart device could then connect such insights to help a user understand which exercise had the most profound impact on heart rate and the effectiveness of a fitness routine.
“Bosch’s validated sensor data helps deliver contextual intelligence and supports advanced on-device experiences,” said John Kehrli, senior director of product management at Qualcomm in a prepared statement.
Bosch describes the BMP585 pressure sensor as highly robust and rugged with low power consumption and low noise. It measures 3.24 x 3.25 x 1.86 mm3, handles pressure up to 1250 hP and voltage as high as 3.6 V.
Analysts said the combination of sensors and AI with neural processing will benefit the wearables space, especially around health and fitness apps. “Personal devices like smart watches and health appliances will become much more capable than current devices,” noted Jack Gold, analyst at J. Gold Associates.
Editor’s Note: At the upcoming Sensors Converge conference and expo in May, both Bosch Sensortec and ST Microelectronics are exhibiting, with Bosch in Booth 622 and ST in Booth 1036. The event runs May 5-7 at Santa Clara Convention Center in California. For more information and to register, go online.